A study suggests that Astronomers may not be able to build large complex power-hungry observatories if they want to reduce their carbon footprint.
Powerful ground and space-based telescopes, such as the recently launched James Webb Space Telescope or the Square Kilometer Array Observatory, come with large life-time carbon footprints that pushes up astronomy.
In a new study, a team of researchers from the Institute for Astrophysics and Planetology Research (IRAP) in Toulouse, France, found that the world's cutting-edge astronomical observatories generate over their lifetime about 22 million tons of carbon. The authors said in a news conference on March 17 that the value is equivalent to the annual carbon emission of some small European countries.
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The greenhouse gas produced as a result of the observatories operations is included in the value. The researchers included the carbon footprint of delivering the telescopes to space in the case of space telescopes.
The world's astronomy research facilities emit a combined 1.2 million tonnes of carbon dioxide every year, which is five times more than the annual flying-related carbon footprint of the world's astronomer.
Annie Hughes, an astronomer at IRAP and one of the authors of the paper, said in the news conference that no study has ever tried to calculate the carbon emissions due to the construction and operation of all the telescopes and space missions. Their footprint is much larger than all other sources of professional carbon emissions.
The researchers said in the paper that the largest carbon footprint of all the telescopes and observatories included in the study was generated by the above mentioned Webb and SKAO.
The method used to estimate the carbon footprint assumes greenhouse gas emissions. It will cost you twice as much, you will double the weight that your gas tank carries, and when you dry your gas tank empty, you will emit twice as much greenhouse gas into the atmosphere.
The researchers admitted that the cost-based estimate is only accurate in an order of magnitude. The life-cycle assessment is a more accurate method of estimating the carbon footprint of astronomy research facilities. The data is usually not available due to confidentiality reasons.
If the estimates are accurate, the astronomy community will have to reduce its carbon footprint by up to a factor of 20 if it wants to comply with global emission reduction targets.
We have a global reduction target for humanity and this is that the emissions of greenhouse gasses need to decline by half from 2010 levels by 2030. This will require a reduction in all activity sectors.
The goal is to reduce the carbon footprint of astronomy.
The pace of building new, bigger, more complex facilities will not be able to meet these targets.
Reducing the pace at which we build new infrastructures is the only way we can achieve a quicker adoption of the emission reduction goals. We will have more time to perform a more comprehensive exploitation of the data from the existing infrastructures because of this.
The different proportions of renewable energy in the energy mix used by individual observatories or facilities involved in the development and manufacturing were not taken into account by the researchers. They used a current global average energy mix as the basis for their calculations.
The European Southern Observatory in Chile and many other astronomy observatories have made commitments in recent years to improve their carbon footprint by investing into solar energy generation and reducing energy consumption.
The observatory wants to cover at least 45% of its electricity needs from renewable resources, but hopes to eventually increase that proportion to 90%, according to an earlier interview.
The Very Large Telescope is one of the cutting-edge observatories in the Atacama desert, and it has embarked on a major greening program, which includes replacing gas turbine power generation with solar power plants at its remote facilities.
The study was published in the journal Nature Astronomy.
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